Fathers in the Family

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) on bringing this important debate before the House and the tone with which he introduced it. I am also grateful to the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) for saying that he wants to take party politics out of the issue. This should be a no-brainer for us all and something on which people from different political traditions can come together.

It is right that we need to be careful about language. We all support the fantastic work that single mums do—indeed, many of us are passionate about this issue because we want single mums to have more help with the very tough job of being a parent. When Gordon Brown left Downing Street for the last time, he said that he was going on to do an even more important job and devote himself fully to being a father to his children, which he viewed as more important than being Prime Minister of our country.

I am encouraged by Early Intervention Foundation research, which the Government are taking very seriously as they work on their social reform White Paper—we all look forward to seeing that shortly—showing that the role of fathers is increasingly recognised as an important influence on child development. I am grateful to Tavistock Relationships for pointing that out. That has not always been recognised, and it is important that we do so.

It should be hugely concerning to us that there are what are sometimes called “dad deserts” up and down the country. The Centre for Social Justice, which also provided a very good briefing, identified 236 hotspots across the country, which should concern us from a social justice and inequality standpoint. When the number of fathers in a community diminishes, it gets harder for the fathers who are there to take their role seriously and to be good role models.

We must also think about how we can ensure that both young women and young men make wise choices about who they partner with. Young women need to look to men to be the fathers of their children who will be there for the long haul and take their important responsibilities seriously. We need to have frank conversations with young men about the incredible joy but also the responsibility of bringing a child into the world. One of the animal charities says that a dog is for life, not just for Christmas. How much more should that be true of having a child?

I am impressed by quite a lot of what happens in this area in north America. The National Fatherhood Initiative has existed in the United States for some time, and there is bipartisan support from Democrats and Republicans. President Obama made incredible father’s day speeches, which were really moving and powerful, not least because he did not see a lot of his own father when he was young. He said that we can pass all the laws in the world, but it takes parents at home to do the long, hard work of bringing up children, and we want more dads to be present to help mums to do that important work.

I know that the Government take this matter seriously and I am encouraged by the Early Intervention Foundation research. I know that the Minister absolutely gets this issue, and I look forward to hearing what she has to say about it.

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[Mr Burrowes]

I will. There is also good work in—

[Andrew Selous]

The Farmer review.

[Mr Burrowes]

My hon. Friend reminds me about the Farmer review, which is looking in particular at the relationship with fathers and at making that link. It is about that responsibility for another. The opportunity for rehabilitation is so important in the long term.

Involving fathers is a route out of poverty, as has been mentioned. Therefore, we must recognise that it makes social and economic sense to take the role of fathers seriously. In dealing with family relationships and crucial moments such as the birth, the early days, weeks and months, maternity services should involve paternity services. Barnardo’s makes that point clearly. The relationship with midwives and health services must involve fathers. Children’s centres, which the Government are looking at, and family hubs must take seriously how to involve fathers. There are some good examples in my constituency and elsewhere of involving fathers in such work. Fathers can play a crucial antenatal and postnatal role. Sadly, that has become too much a middle-class preserve, with the national childbirth trusts and others involving fathers. All of us may have been involved in that, but sadly fathers from more disadvantaged backgrounds are not involved. We must look practically at how to get fathers involved from the early stages before birth and afterwards.

Preventive work in terms of education is also important. As I should have said at the beginning of my speech, I pay tribute to the Centre for Social Justice for championing the role of fathers, along with other organisations, such as the Relationships Alliance—reference has been made to it. We must recognise the preventive role. Education can play an important role in that. Today, the Government rightly responded to cross-party calls to require relationship education in primary schools, providing a foundation for sex education. That is crucial in terms of the role of fathers and understanding that from a very young age.

The Minister has a cross-cutting role in this area. There is an issue of equality here. She has responsibility for equality. We have made a cross-party call on a practical issue of equality—the joint registration of births. That has been on the table since 2009—schedule 6 to the Welfare Reform Act 2009 provides for the joint registration of births. That happens automatically for mums, but why not for unmarried fathers?

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[Caroline Dinenage]

Absolutely; that is fundamental. Parents should make their own decisions about whether they want to work or stay at home and look after their children, and about which of them decides to do that role.

Flexible working can allow fathers to spend more valuable time with their children and achieve a better work-life balance. Some Members and the Women and Equalities Committee have called for shared parental leave and flexible working to be made compulsory, or for the regulation to be extended. All I will say is that these are relatively new regulations. It is going to require a culture shift in order for these things to take off properly, and that will take time.

[Andrew Selous]

Will the Minister give way briefly?

[Caroline Dinenage]

I have very little time. If my hon. Friend does not mind, I want to make a bit of progress.

I am determined to keep further action on this in my back pocket to see how these policies bed in for just a little bit longer, especially when we bring in the gender pay gap regulations next month, before imposing any further changes that would impose significant costs on business and the public purse. I do not want to do that unnecessarily.

We know that for families with young children childcare is not an issue, but the issue, and is hugely important for both mothers and fathers. That is why we are increasing our spending to a record £6 billion per year by 2020—more than any Government ever. That means we are doubling the childcare entitlement to working parents of three and four-year-olds from 15 hours to 30 hours. That will start in September 2017, saving parents who get the full entitlement about £5,000 per year.

The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) is wrong—we have eight early implementer areas that are already delivering that. I have met most of them, and the policy is going really well and making a measurable difference to parents up and down this country. More than 80% of local authorities will see their money go up. We are spending a record amount of money on this, so it is unfortunate scaremongering to say that it is not going to be a success. It comes in addition to the 15 hours a week we give to the 40% most disadvantaged two-year-olds. She asked about parents who are not in work; we are also helping with 70% of childcare costs for people on low incomes through working tax credits, and 85% for parents on universal credit.

We will shortly publish an early years workforce strategy, which aims to support and attract the best people into the early years workforce. Crucially, it will include how we can get more men into early years work. If we are going to focus on how we get more girls into science, technology, engineering and maths, it is only right that we get more boys into caring roles, and it will do something to break down gender stereotypes and ensure that more men work in caring professions.

The hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) and my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) mentioned family law. As my hon. Friend mentioned, the law changed in 2014, bringing in a statutory presumption that both parents should be involved in their children’s lives. I will certainly pass on their comments to my colleagues in the Ministry of Justice, along with those of my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) on the issue of joint registration.

My hon. Friends the Members for St Austell and Newquay and for Enfield, Southgate talked about offenders who grew up in fatherless households. Positive family relationships have also been identified as a factor in preventing reoffending. For example, research has found that prisoners who reported improved family relationships while in prison were less likely to reoffend after release.